• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.77-85
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• 2011

The silicon-germanium (SiGe) alloy, which is compatible with silicon semiconductor technology and has a smaller band gap and a lower thermal conductivity than silicon, has been used to fabricate electronic devices such as transistors, photodetectors, solar cells, and thermoelectric devices. This paper reviews the application of SiGe alloys to electronic devices and related technical issues. Since the SiGe alloy comprises germanium whose band gap is smaller than silicon, its band gap is also smaller than that of silicon irrespective of the ratio of silicon to germanium. This narrow band gap of SiGe enables the base thickness of bipolar transistors to decrease without a loss in current gain so that it is possible to improve the speed of bipolar transistors by adopting the SiGe-base. In addition, the conversion efficiency of solar cells is enhanced by the absorption of long-wavelength light in the SiGe absorption layer. Phonon scattering caused by the irregular distribution of alloying elements induces the lower thermal conductivity of SiGe than those of pure silicon and germanium. Because a thin film layer with a low thermal conductivity suppresses thermal conduction through a thermal sink, the SiGe alloy is considered to be a promising material for silicon-based thermoelectric systems.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.66-66
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• 2003

실리콘 박막 태양전지는 저가, 대면적 생산이 가능해 최근 주택용, 발전용의 차세대 태양전지로써 부각되고 있다. 그러나, 단결정, 다결정 태양전지에 비해 상대적으로 낮은 효율특성 때문에 그 특성을 향상시키고자 하는 다양한 연구가 진행되고 있다. 비정질/마이크로결정질 실리콘 박막 태양전지에서 광흡수층으로 사용되는 i층은 광흡수를 최대화하기 위해 암전류($\sigma$$_{d}$)가 낮고 광전류($\sigma$$_{ph}$ )가 높은, 즉, 광민감도($\sigma$$_{ph}$ /$\sigma$$_{d}$)가 높은 박막을 적용해야 한다. 한편, 도핑된 윈도우층의 경우에는 넓은 밴드갭을 갖도록 하여 윈도우층에서의 광흡수가 최소화되도록 박막을 형성해야 한다.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.04b
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• pp.256-258
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• 2009

현재 상용화되어 있는 결정질 태양전지의 경우 높은 실리콘 가격으로 인해 저가격화에 어려움을 격고 있다. 따라서 태양전지 저가화의 한 방법으로 박막태양전지가 주목을 받고 있다. P-I-N 구조의 박막태양전지에서 각 층의 thickness, activation energy, energy bandgap은 고효율 달성을 위한 중요한 요소이다. 본 논문에서는 박막태양전지 p-layer의 가변을 통하여 고효율을 달성하기 위한 simulation을 수행하였다. 가변 조건으로는 thickness $5\sim25nm$, activation energy $0.3\sim0.6$ eV 그리고 energy bandgap $1.6\sim1.8$ eV까지 단계별로 변화시켰다. 최종 simulation 결과 p-layer의 thickness 5nm, activation energy 0.3 eV 그리고 energy bandgap 1.8 eV에서 최고 효율 11.08%를 달성하였다.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1993.07b
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• pp.1147-1149
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• 1993

ZnO/$SnO_2$:F bilayer films have been prepared by pyrosol deposition method to develop optimum transparent electrode for use in amorphous silicon solar cells. The solution for $SnO_2:F$ film was composed of $SnCl_4{\cdot}5H_2O,\;NH_4F,\;CH_3OH$ and HCl, and ZnO films have been deposited on the $SnO_2:F$ films by using the solution of $ZnO(CH_3COO){_2}{\cdot}2H_2O,\;H_2O\;and\;CH_3OH$. These films have been investigated the variation of electrical and optical properties under the hydrogen plasma exposure. The sheet resistance of the $SnO_2:F$ film was sharply increased and its transmittance was decreased with the blackish effect after plasma treatment. However, the ZnO/$SnO_2:F$ bilayer film was shown hydrogen plasma durability because the electrical and optical properties was almost unchanged more then 60 seconds exposure time.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.154-155
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• 2012

The promise of nano-crystalites (nc) as a technological material, for applications including display backplane, and solar cells, may ultimately depend on tailoring their behavior through doping and crystallinity. Impurities can strongly modify electronic and optical properties of bulk and nc semiconductors. Highly doped dopant also effect structural properties (both grain size, crystal fraction) of nc-Si thin film. As discussed in several literatures, P atoms or radicals have the tendency to reside on the surface of nc. The P-radical segregation on the nano-grain surfaces that called self-purification may reduce the possibility of new nucleation because of the five-coordination of P. In addition, the P doping levels of ${\sim}2{\times}10^{21}\;at/cm^3$ is the solubility limitation of P in Si; the solubility of nc thin film should be smaller. Therefore, the non-activated P tends to segregate on the grain boundaries and the surface of nc. These mechanisms could prevent new nucleation on the existing grain surface. Therefore, most researches shown that highly doped nc-thin film by using conventional PECVD deposition system tended to have low crystallinity, where the formation energy of nucleation should be higher than the nc surface in the intrinsic materials. If the deposition technology that can make highly doped and simultaneously highly crystallized nc at low temperature, it can lead processes of next generation flexible devices. Recently, we are developing a novel CVD technology with a neutral particle beam (NPB) source, named as neutral beam assisted CVD (NBaCVD), which controls the energy of incident neutral particles in the range of 1~300eV in order to enhance the atomic activation and crystalline of thin films at low temperatures. During the formation of the nc-/pm-Si thin films by the NBaCVD with various process conditions, NPB energy directly controlled by the reflector bias and effectively increased crystal fraction (~80%) by uniformly distributed nc grains with 3~10 nm size. In the case of phosphorous doped Si thin films, the doping efficiency also increased as increasing the reflector bias (i.e. increasing NPB energy). At 330V of reflector bias, activation energy of the doped nc-Si thin film reduced as low as 0.001 eV. This means dopants are fully occupied as substitutional site, even though the Si thin film has nano-sized grain structure. And activated dopant concentration is recorded as high as up to 1020 #/$cm^3$ at very low process temperature (＜ $80^{\circ}C$) process without any post annealing. Theoretical solubility for the higher dopant concentration in Si thin film for order of 1020 #/$cm^3$ can be done only high temperature process or post annealing over $650^{\circ}C$. In general, as decreasing the grain size, the dopant binding energy increases as ratio of 1 of diameter of grain and the dopant hardly be activated. The highly doped nc-Si thin film by low-temperature NBaCVD process had smaller average grain size under 10 nm (measured by GIWAXS, GISAXS and TEM analysis), but achieved very higher activation of phosphorous dopant; NB energy sufficiently transports its energy to doping and crystallization even though without supplying additional thermal energy. TEM image shows that incubation layer does not formed between nc-Si film and SiO2 under later and highly crystallized nc-Si film is constructed with uniformly distributed nano-grains in polymorphous tissues. The nucleation should be start at the first layer on the SiO2 later, but it hardly growth to be cone-shaped micro-size grains. The nc-grain evenly embedded pm-Si thin film can be formatted by competition of the nucleation and the crystal growing, which depend on the NPB energies. In the evaluation of the light soaking degradation of photoconductivity, while conventional intrinsic and n-type doped a-Si thin films appeared typical degradation of photoconductivity, all of the nc-Si thin films processed by the NBaCVD show only a few % of degradation of it. From FTIR and RAMAN spectra, the energetic hydrogen NB atoms passivate nano-grain boundaries during the NBaCVD process because of the high diffusivity and chemical potential of hydrogen atoms.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.251-255
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• 2021

a-Si is commonly considered as a primary candidate for the formation of passivation layer in heterojunction (HIT) solar cells. However, there are some problems when using this material such as significant losses due to recombination and parasitic absorption. To reduce these problems, a wide bandgap material is needed. A wide bandgap has a positive influence on effective transmittance, reduction of the parasitic absorption, and prevention of unnecessary epitaxial growth. In this paper, the adoption of a-SiO_x:H as the intrinsic layer was discussed. To increase lifetime and conductivity, oxygen concentration control is crucial because it is correlated with the thickness, bonding defect, interface density (D_it), and band offset. A thick oxygen-rich layer causes the lifetime and the implied open-circuit voltage to drop. Furthermore the thicker the layer gets, the more free hydrogen atoms are etched in thin films, which worsens the passivation quality and the efficiency of solar cells. Previous studies revealed that the lifetime and the implied voltage decreased when the a-SiOx thickness went beyond around 9 nm. In addition to this, oxygen acted as a defect in the intrinsic layer. The D_it increased up to an oxygen rate on the order of 8%. Beyond 8%, the D_it was constant. By controlling the oxygen concentration properly and achieving a thin layer, high-efficiency HIT solar cells can be fabricated.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.94-94
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• 2009

최근 실리콘 태양전지는 점점 얇아 지는 추세에 있다. 실리콘 태양전지에 있어 실리콘의 두께를 감소시키는 것은 실리콘 소모량을 줄이는데 있어 필수적인 조건이 되었다. 이에 따라 실리콘 표면의 passivation도 더욱 중요하게 여겨지고 있다. 실리콘 태양전지의 passivation막의 한 종류인 $Al_2O_3$는 다른 산화막 물질들과는 달리 negative fixed charge를 가지고 있고 charge의 양이 다른 산화막의 density보다 높아 p-type 실리콘의 경우 후면 passivation막으로 이용이 고려되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 atomic layer deposition으로 $Al_2O_3$막을 실리콘 위에 증착하여 열처리에 따른 그 특성을 비교하고 태양전지를 제작하였다. $Al_2O_3$막을 rapid thermal annealing을 통해 서로 다른 분위기에서 열처리 한 결과를 capacitance-voltage를 통해 측정하여 비교, 분석하였고 ellipsomety 분석을 통해 광학적 특성을 비교하였다. 또한 열처리 온도의 변화에 따른 $Al_2O_3$내에 charge에 변화가 있다는 것을 관찰하였다. 이러한 charge의 변화가 태양전지의 passivation에 영향을 주는지 관찰하기 위해 Quasi-steady state photoconductace를 통해 lifetime의 변화를 관찰 하였다. 이러한 실험결과로부터 열처리 분위기와 온도를 최적화 하여 태양전지 passivation 특성을 증가시킬 수 있었다.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.07c
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• pp.1584-1586
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• 2002

CuIn$Se_2$ (CIS) and related compounds such as Cu($In_xGa_{1-x})Se_2$(CIGS) have been studied by their potential for use in photovoltaic devices. CIS thin film materials which have high absorption coefficient and wide bandgap, have attracted much attention as an alternative to crystalline and amorphous silicon solar cells currently in use. Cu-rich CIGS film have very low resistivity, due to coexistence of the semimetallic $Cu_{2-x}Se$. In-rich CIGS films show high resistivity, since these films are compensated films without the $Cu_{2-x}Se$ phase. Optical properties of the CIGS films also change in accordance with the resistivity for the Cu/(In+Ga) ratio. The Cu-rich films have different spectra from In-rich films in near infrared wavelengths.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.29-34
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• 2022

The most prevalent cause of solar cell efficiency loss is reduced recombination at the metal electrode and silicon junction. To boost efficiency, a a SiO_X/poly-Si passivating interface is being developed. Poly-Si for passivating contact is formed by various deposition methods (sputtering, PECVD, LPCVD, HWCVD) where the ploy-Si characterization depends on the deposition method. The sputtering process forms a dense Si film at a low deposition rate of 2.6 nm/min and develops a low passivation characteristic of 690 mV. The PECVD process offers a deposition rate of 28 nm/min with satisfactory passivation characteristics. The LPCVD process is the slowest with a deposition rate of 1.4 nm/min, and can prevent blistering if deposited at high temperatures. The HWCVD process has the fastest deposition rate at 150 nm/min with excellent passivation characteristics. However, the uniformity of the deposited film decreases as the area increases. Also, the best passivation characteristics are obtained at high doping. Thus, it is necessary to optimize the doping process depending on the deposition method.

• Solar Energy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.3-11
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• 1997

Because grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon act as potential barriers and recombination centers for the photo-generated charge carriers, these defects degrade conversion effiency of solar cell. To reduce these effects of grain boundaries, we investigated various influencing factors such as thermal treatment, various grid pattern, selective wet etching for grain boundaries, buried contact metallization along grain boundaries, grid on metallic thin film. Pretreatment above $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ atmosphere, gettering by $POCl_3$ and Al treatment for back surface field contributed to obtain a high quality poly-Si. To prevent carrier losses at the grain boundaries, we carried out surface treatment using Schimmel etchant. This etchant delineated grain boundaries of $10{\mu}m$ depth as well as surface texturing effect. A metal AI diffusion into grain boundaries on rear side reduced back surface recombination effects at grain boundaries. A combination of fine grid with finger spacing of 0.4mm and buried electrode along grain boundaries improved short circuit current density of solar cell. A ultra-thin Chromium layer of 20nm with transmittance of 80% reduced series resistance. This paper focused on the grain boundary effect for terrestrial applications of solar cells with low cost, large area, and high efficiency.